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Another substitution – Fiat Euro! 35/2014

The French Left is provoked by the new Minister of Economy, Europe is provoked by the French numbers.

German Der Spiegel caused a one-minute storm in Europe. It gave us the trouble and calculated that four Commissioners who are ending in their office in October, are getting better with half a million euros. Each one of them. Nothing would be strange about that after all, people got used to Baroque salaries of top EU officials. These top Commissioners though, only „worked“ for four months, since they were appointed in June as alternates for Commissioners, who got elected to the Euro parliament. And this has struck also some MEPs, who are not that easy to intimidate with the salary factor. Well, when I grow up, I want to be a Commissioner too!

Of course, this is not the only lucrative position here. Do you want to earn almost 140.000 per year? Then you have to become the top manager in the British company, a top surgeon in Germany, Governor of New York or… An errand boy in the Italian parliament. As so called usciere, you will have a nice uniform and your task will be to carry the messages across the parliament, or to accompany visitors. But since we still have a crisis around, the governments are saving. In three years, the usciere will get only something more than 100.000 per year. The maximum salary of an employee of the Italian Parliament was set at 240.000 per year. There are 2.300 employees, the ceiling covers app. 130 of them.

Bohemian Italians have always been experts at absurd throwing the money away but we can find similar numbers in France, Belgium and Portugal too. And they also beautifully illustrate how lost the Europe still is. To reduce the salary for the senseless workplace by 10% – these are not austerity measures. That would be the repeal of such positions.

The French president Hollande increasingly solves similar dilemmas. The message about 4.3% annual increase of unemployment landed on his desk. According to polls, this man has the lowest popularity in the history of French presidents. Businesses did not soften under his promises and the PM is already starting to beg. „France needs you!” Manuel Valls said at the employers meeting. That happened two days after the president dissolved his government, so he could stack it again in three days later. Another substitution after the dissolution of Jean-Marc Ayrault’ government in March 2014, what took place after the Minister of Economy openly criticized Holland’s proclaimed effort to save. Minister Arnaud Montebourg wanted the government to spend freely on the „growth promotion“. Lie repeated a hundred times may not be true, that is why I remind the numbers again.

The French public spending increased from 1.030 billion euro in the beginning of crisis in 2008, to 1.170 billion euro in 2013.

The share of public expenditure on GDP increased from 53.3% in 2008 to 57.1% in 2013. If you can define that as savings, one of us needs a new dictionary.

But before there will be a „tragedian“ credited to his name in the chronicles, and the chroniclers will turn to the next page, Holland wanted to try something new and take the gamble. The new Minister of Economy became Emannuel Macron. The former banker of Rotchild Bank, which proclaims important steps in favor of entrepreneurs is causing goose bumps to the Left-ier part of the Socialist Party and may lead to the war within its structures. Even though, Macron is inspired by the ethos of Oscar Wilde: „Whenever people agree with me, I feel that I’m doing something wrong.“, he will have to prove his commitment.
If the French government would gen one euro for every promise to improve the business environment, it would already be in surplus. But so far, it stays with the promises – while the Great Britain has the 10th best business environment according to the World Bank and Germany is the 21st, France is 28th (and Slovakia 49th).

Imagine, that they would freeze your bank account. How many days would you be able to function? Bulgaria got tested. Two months after the unofficial collapse, Bulgarian CorpBank remains closed. Despite the existing scheme of deposit insurance, depositors have not seen one lev from their accounts. It is estimated, that money will not be available until October. What is more, the week before the bank defaulted its bonds as well. And this is the bank which won three times the Bulgarian banking price for the dynamic development in 2010-2012, but depositors probably did not expect such a dynamics.

Money sometimes forfeited to the holes in the system of central bank controlled fractional banking, sometimes they get fired to the space. There is no shortage of grandiose ideas in Brussels’ offices. Project Galileo – European alternative to GPS and GLONASS – cost 6 billion euro so far. Total costs, including the necessary operating subsidies are estimated to be more than 20 billion euro. The number is not final though, since the project is accompanied by a constant delay. Last week it was „managed“ to release two satellites on the wrong orbit.

In the EU, to become the official, not only skills are needed but the right gender too. Brussels is imposing quotas for women on firms, but it’s funny that there are not that many women Commissioners around. Particularly unhappy is the future head of the Commission, Juncker, who is already putting a force on some Member States to nominate women. Maybe he should set an example and change the sex himself. This way, he would support not only gender, but also the transgender agenda with one shot!

But it might not be a bad idea to have more women in the Commission. With some regulations, there is a missing point of view of them. For instant, from September only vacuums permitted will be those with power up to 1600 Watts and the limit will gradually decrease to 900 Watts.

And women, please do not get offended by this grossly sexist conclusion. Without the remuneration, I will tell you that at my home, it is me who’s doing the vacuuming and washing dishes.